Mehrabuddin, 65, who farms two hectares at the tail end of the canal system, agrees.“The water has sped up six times as fast. Now I wait just one hour and all is well. Before I was losing a lot of crops,”... Show More + he remarks.“Life is much easier for everybody,” observes Mohammad, who supports nine children. “Now the water is coming fast and clean, and our land is very productive.”Mohammad says it used to take two hours to fully irrigate his fields of wheat, onions, carrots and other vegetables, but now, the watering is done in 20 minutes. A field that yielded 600 kg of crop now produces about 1,200 kg.This change is also due to laser land leveling, which uses a mounted sensor on a tractor to compare terrain elevations so land can be leveled for proper irrigation and drainage. The end result saves water and time, while doubling productivity.Farmers have been astonished by this technology, says Safi. “I am getting ten applications daily now. I think they want the entire region leveled,” he Show Less -

A better life for familiesFarmers in this province have always appreciated orchards, says Mirza. They need less space and less work than vegetable crops, and they are perennial. Even better, there is more... Show More + profit from fruit however the initial investment has been out of reach for many.With NHLP’s help, Sherzad planted 133 new trees in mid-February of 2013 on his one jerib (0.2 hectare) of land. He isn’t worried about any temporary loss of income while the trees mature because the intercrops are already producing better than his previous vegetable crops, he says. “They are also of very good quality and they are getting good fertilizer, so my income has already doubled from this alone.”Sherzad supports seven children and plans to use the extra money to send them to good schools, buy medicine and reinvest in his orchard. Sherzad says he moved his family to this region 10 years ago from another district where security was a problem. Now, just as his lemon trees mature, he also wants to put Show Less -